How do you wire in aftermarket gauges?
 

I don't trust my stock gauges in my car they are wacko i wanted to go get some aftermarket gauges and put them in but on my 86 gxl how should i wire them. i need to wire a temp gauge, a voltmeter, and a oil pressure. I heard someone say i could wire the temp gauge to the thermostat housing wire, but that's why i am asking you guys for help thanks much?

whatever gauges you buy for oil pressure/water temp you need to use their senders. volt you can tap in anywhere. on the oil/water you have two choices. put the new senders where the old ones were and not have any readings on the dash gauges or buy an oil pedestal for the oil sender and then tap the water pump for the water temp. some people have run off other places for water, just depends on how accurate and responsive you want it to be.

ya i was also somewhat wondering about what wire you are supposed to connect it to on the ignition.....i have it hooked up but it only glows as i turn the engine over.....

for illumination tap into the lights, can tap it anywhere. for power same thing, just about anywhere. one of the easier places is the wiring in the radio compartment.

All the best places to tap into have been discussed so you should be able to search and find them. Look for a post by Dale Clark for the water temp. Get an Oil Filter block for the oil pressure and otherwise I'm not sure if you can use the stock placement for that stuff because the stock ecu needs to see those kind of things.

Chris

I've read numerous threads that said the most acurate place to install a water temp sensor is to tap into the back side of the water pump...

where would be the next best place to put a temp sensor without tapping and still get a fairly close temp reading???

couldn't you use a coolant hose and run an inline apdapter with the temp sensor installed into the adapter?? if so, what coolant hose would work best??